As PGA Tour-LIV Saga Endures, Fan Frustration is Turning Into Apathy

The priorities of the brave new professional golf world are perfectly clear. 

And the golf fan, you can be sure, is at the bitter end of that priority list. 

What other conclusion can be drawn after the events of the past two years and the past two weeks? The people who enjoy watching men’s pro golf have been worn down like an unchanged grip. 

In a recent MyGolfSpy Twitter poll with more than 7,000 votes, nearly 50 percent of golf fans said they would watch less competitive golf in 2024. They might be watching golf in other places but their collective desire to seek out the pro game could be waning. 

“Honestly, I enjoy watching many of the golfers on YouTube more than the PGA Tour,” wrote one commenter. “More personality and humor. Frankly, it is a more entertaining product than the PGA Tour.” 

Jon Rahm Bolts to LIV

Evidence for fan exhaustion might have reached a dystopian crescendo when Jon Rahm—seemingly one of the most thoughtful, affable and genuine characters in golf—donned a LIV Golf letterman jacket during last week’s appearance on Fox News to announce his lucrative deal with the disruptive circuit. 

In the months and years leading up to his announcement, Rahm had been an ardent PGA Tour supporter while outwardly objecting to LIV. He harshly criticized LIV’s format, pledged fealty to the PGA Tour, explained how more money would not fundamentally change his life and convinced everyone that he valued beating the best players in the world more than maximizing profit. He openly laughed at those who questioned his intentions or mentioned him in LIV rumors. 

Because of that, most followers of pro golf had Rahm in their top five for notable players most unlikely to depart for the LIV cash grab. Perhaps only Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth could be considered ahead of him in those unofficial rankings. 

But during his television appearance, Rahm exchanged his trademark passion for a dead-eyed expression. He trotted out tired party lines like a politician and admitted that the money—reportedly somewhere between $300 million and $600 million—was a primary factor in his decision. A day later, Rahm ran a victory lap on “The Pat McAfee Show” as the interview revolved around two obscenely rich men talking about how one of them just got even richer. That the interview took place on ESPN, which has invested heavily into the PGA Tour through their ESPN+ platform, was a chef’s kiss moment. 

A week later, Rahm made it clear that his thoughtful voice would be silenced for the time being.

“I am under very strict instructions not to do public events,” Rahm told reporters in Spain. “There will be nothing until February. I’m not allowed to.”

It’s a huge loss for all of us not to hear Rahm speak freely. He was among the most entertaining and interesting press conferences in all of golf, but now it seems he has sold his freedom of speech in addition to selling his world-class skills on the course.

Can you blame Rahm? Yes and no. 

It must be hard to turn down that amount of money. He had the opportunity and he took it. Rahm leveraged the green jacket he won last spring, and his place as a top player in the world who doesn’t have to worry about major exemptions, for his own business interests. It is his right to do that. Potentially, Rahm could be cashing in and only have to serve a short suspension from the PGA Tour before the two leagues join forces and Rahm can play tour events again.

But Rahm is also the latest in a long line of important people who have prioritized their own business interests ahead of the greater good, causing professional golf to eat itself from the inside. Although Tony Finau announced his intentions of staying with the PGA Tour after speculation he would leave, it’s a virtual guarantee that Rahm won’t be the last to go to LIV. 

That has golf, already a niche sport with a relatively small audience, becoming more divided with two watered-down products. 

The biggest loser in all of this is the fans. And fans, it should be said, have been dismissed by the PGA Tour for years. 

How We Reached This Point

This whole mess started with the tour, a member-run organization with a mission to treat all of its players equally. The tour had long been overly protective toward the bottom two-thirds of its membership, its bloated structure being vulnerable but serviceable for decades. 

The value of the PGA Tour always rested with players like Woods, McIlroy, Spieth and other stars but the tour jerry-rigged its product to salvage a living for the rank and file. It was a matter of excess. In an attempt to feed too many mouths, the tour tried to sustain too many events, featuring too many players that fans did not care about. It was largely the reason they created the FedEx Cup Playoffs, a contrived and hamfisted effort to get more money to the best players while still taking care of everyone else. 

Even before LIV came around, the PGA Tour struggled to create an entertaining product. Its TV offering has long been drowned in ads and on-air sponsored content to the point of being borderline unwatchable. The golf itself is hit or miss but the misses are frequent and, until recently, the top players were not meeting enough. The tour sat on its hands in the innovation department, holding onto its archaic structure as long as possible. 

They could have adapted and created a better product around star players, one that would have been appealing to more fans. They didn’t, until it was too late. 

And even if they had innovated, the Saudi Public Investment Fund might have bulldozed them over anyway. PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan had the opportunity to pick up the PIF’s phone calls before that could happen but the tour stayed the course and opened itself up to the most embarrassing chapter in its history. 

PIF and its governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, came in with a bottomless pit of money and hunger to earn a seat at the table. Inserting an irrational actor into the professional golf marketplace artificially inflated everyone’s value, making it impossible for the PGA Tour to compete in an arms race.

LIV’s emergence was great for the players who took the money. It was great for the PGA Tour players who stayed and raked in large raises as the tour tried to counter. Others involved, like agents and caddies, also benefited in a major way. 

But on the whole, it has been worse for fans. 

LIV was instantly caught in the wasteland between serious competition and exhibition golf. Fans don’t care about how much money golfers make; they just want to be entertained by something genuine. LIV hasn’t resonated at all, drawing poor ratings that are just a fraction of the PGA Tour audience. Just finding the CW Network was a challenge on its own. 

Rahm joining won’t make any material impact. Of the top 27 players in Data Golf’s overall rankings, which include all players regardless of where they compete, he is the only LIV member. Even if they captured more top guys, LIV is not resonating with golf fans. Most close followers of the game have cared about the news and drama surrounding LIV but they don’t care about the competition. 

And while LIV flounders, spending an endless stream of money on a product not generating meaningful revenue, the PGA Tour has been bled dry by the PIF. The tour is missing a handful of its most interesting characters—Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed and Dustin Johnson included—further diluting a product that needed a facelift but received a punch to the face instead. 

That is why the PGA Tour and the PIF joined forces with a framework agreement this past June. It was a matter of survival for the tour. They were out of options. LIV would continue to poach players, as it has with Rahm, until a merger of some sort can take place. 

Whether that agreement goes through—the deadline is supposed to be the end of this month—will say a lot about professional golf’s future. 

Where Does Professional Golf Go From Here?

The optimistic take is that the PGA Tour and LIV will come together with the potential for a more global tour. The top players will compete against each other again, maybe in a more exciting format with a more palatable TV product. Middle-of-the-pack players will compete in a lower-tier league with the ability to play their way into the best events, along the same lines of the new PGA Tour model being implemented this year. 

The elite competitive game needs a hard reset, a complete reimagining of what it should be. 

But professional golf’s recent history offers little room for optimism. The stakeholders involved have been looking out for themselves. 

When was the last time professional golf made a decision that benefited fans? There have been small peace offerings, like commercial-free back nines for majors and better streaming options, but they are few and far between. While other leagues like the MLB and NBA have gone for radical changes that give fans a better experience, golf has rarely made an earnest effort to care about fans.

Greed has carried the day and golf fans have been abused because of it. The sentiment I continue to hear is that fans, once angry about the abuse, just don’t have the energy to care anymore. 

They will watch the majors and occasionally flip through channels to see the end of an exciting tournament. Many will spend more time playing golf instead of watching it. The true sickos will stay, their Stockholm Syndrome too much to overcome, but the masses can’t be blamed if they aren’t as invested as they used to be. 

There is a famous Elie Wiesel quote: “The opposite of love is not hate; it’s indifference.”

Apathy is spreading amongst golf fans. Professional golf deserves it.

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